Reut Regev and R*Time Jam Out Some Murky Stoner Funk

[It's always useful to have a sister blog that will send some good stuff over at the end of the month when you're busy putting together the next month's NYC concert calendar...]

Reut Regev is one of the ringleaders in minor-key jam band Hazmat Modine’s wild brass section, and a unique, original voice on the trombone. She’s got an eclectically fun new album, Exploring the Vibe, out with her stoner funk band, R*Time, which blends elements of jazz, no wave, Ethiopian and Balkan music, among other styles. Regev got the inspiration for the project at a festival in Germany where she had the chance to play with guitarist Jean-Paul Bourelly and realized that the chemistry for a good album was there. The rhythm section here is Regev’s husband Igal Foni on drums and Mark Peterson on bass, with cameos from Kevin Johnson on drums and Jon Sass on tuba. As you would expect, there’s a hypnotic, psychedelic aspect to this; at the same time, Bourelly and Regev utilize a lot of space, judiciously choosing their moments over an undulating groove. Much as a lot of the music has a restlessness and unease, a wry sense of humor pokes out from time to time. It’s a fun ride.

Bourelly plays mostly with a tinge of dirty, natural distortion when he’s not adding subtle ornamentation with his effects. Regev is a very incisive, rhythmic player, although she also likes ambient, shadowy colors. Peterson’s work here is hook-oriented – there are several passages where the drums drop out, or there’s skeletal percussion rattling around and that’s where the bass carries both melody and rhythm. Foni likes the rumbling lows, but like the rest of this crew, he doesn’t waste beats.

The opening track, Drama Maybe Drama, is a tongue-in-cheek diptych, Bourelly going off on a completely unexpected, early Jimmy Page-tinged open-tuned tangent midway through. They follow that with a buzzing, loopy, unresolved interlude and then Montenegro, which hints at reggae, funk and disco before finally hitting some Balkan riffage and then a Middle Eastern-flavored bass solo. Bluegrass and Ethiopian tinges sit side by side in Ilha Bela, a minimalisti but catchy tune with doppler trombone from Regev. Madeleine Forever, a tribute to Foni’s mom, illustrates someone who could be severe but was also very funny, winding up with biting Big Lazy-style skronky funk.

Blue Llamas makes a good segue, again evoking Big Lazy with its allusive chromatics, stomping, spacious blues, hard-hitting guitar and hypnotic rimshot rhythm. OK OJ coalesces toward a camelwalking East African groove with some neat handoffs between the guitar and trombone and a tongue-in-cheek “let’s go” outro. Raw Way, ostensibly a Junior Kimhrough homage, sounds nothing like him: way down beneath all the rumbling and shrieking and free interplay, it’s a terse blues. New Beginning is a weirdly successful, catchy attempt to merge New Orleans funk and Hendrix. There’s also a wryly bluesy guitar miniature and a bizarre stoner soul song sung by Bourelly. Who is the audience for this? Obviously, jazz fans, although people who gravitate toward the more psychedelic side of funk have an awful lot to sink their ears into.

Win Free Tix to Terakaft’s American Debut March 9 at Drom

Editor’s note – this contest is now over. Congratulations to the five lucky winners!

History will be made on Saturday, March 9 when Tuareg desert band Terakaft make their US debut at Drom, 85 Ave. A between 5th and 6th Sts. and you can be part of it for free! A spinoff of the world’s most popular “world music” act, desert blues band Tinariwen, Terakaft have a similarly dusky, otherworldly sound and share band members with that group as well. New York Music Daily is giving away five pairs of tickets to the show. To win, be one of the first five to scroll down and click the “leave a comment” button at the bottom of this page, then just leave your name and email address. No purchase necessary, and your email won’t be shared with anybody. The concert is a triplebill with darkly lyrical French chanteuse Fredda opening the night at 7, Terakaft after that and then the wild, intense NY Gypsy All-Stars with clarinet god Ismail Lumanovski at around 11. If you’ve never been to Drom, you’re in for a treat: it’s a great date spot with low lights, plush surroundings, fantastic sound, good comfort food and drinks that are cheaper than you would expect at this kind of spot. Click below to win and enjoy the show!

Terakaft on Myspace
Terakaft on Youtube
Terakaft’s latest album Kel Tamasheq (Tamasheq Speakers) at World Village Music

Jacco Gardner’s Period-Perfect Psychedelia Comes to NYC

Psychedelic songwriter Jacco Gardner’s new album Cabinet of Curiosities so perfectly recreates the surrealistically vaudevillian sound of 60s British psychedelic pop that it could be a parody. Consider: the central instrument here is the electric harpsichord. If you’ve ever killed time with “classic rock” radio, you know the sound: Ray Manzarek plays one on the Doors’ People Are Strange. Gardner delivers his paradoxical, sometimes befuddled lyrics in in perfect deadpan English, his purist second-generation Beatles melodies mingling with the baroque via an endless series of vintage and neo-vintage keyboard patches. Does he realize how completely absurd, and completely ridiculous a lot of this sounds? Consider: Gardner is Dutch, and while it seems everybody in Holland speaks English, it’s not everyone’s first language. Whatever the case, ultimately it doesn’t matter. Whether or not this is a homage, a sendup, a serious (hmmm) attempt to take the psych-pop pantheon to new places, or all of the above, it’s impossible to listen to this and not smile. The whole thing (along with other miscellaneous treats) is streaming at his Bandcamp page.

What’s most spectacular about this is that Gardner not only writes this stuff, he plays all of it, manning all the keys as well as guitars, bass and drums, all of them period-perfect! If Elliott Smith had been born thirty years earlier and had followed his muse into mushrooms rather than opiates, he might have sounded something like this. The Zombies’ Odessey and Oracle is an obvious influence, as are the Pretty Things, the Move and the Kinks in their airiest and artsiest mid-to-late-60s moments. Among current-day acts, the Smiles and Frowns and Jeremy Messersmith come to mind.

The opening track Clear the Air sets the tone, both swooshy and rippling all at once: the guitar doesn’t come in til the second chorus, and then it’s just an acoustic. The One Eyed King works a more classically-tinged minor-key vibe: “Open up the window to your mind so I can look inside,” Gardner teases as the mellotron pans the mix. Puppets Dangling continues in the same vein, a mix of oldschool chamber pop and fifth-wave psychedelia. Where Will You Go teleports the idea of Oasis’ Wonderwall 25 years back in time and improves on it immensely, sort of a carnivalesque take on the Moody Blues.

The most anthemic track here is Watching the Moon, making its way from a sureal waltz into more ornate territory. Gardner is brave enough to make the title track an instrumental, and a good one, with its ghost-girl vocalese and unexpected chord changes: with tunes this good, who needs lyrics, anyway?

The Riddle, with its wry Good Vibrations references, rocks harder than anything here: it reminds of Brooklyn art-rockers Aunt Ange. Gardner goes back to weird waltz mode with the aptly titled Lullaby, its Nektar-ish broken chords and long, dreamy fade, then raises the angst level and the epic sweep with Help Me Out: “I need another curtain just to make me feel all right…let the sunlight find me just before I turn into stone,” he intones with an eerie matter-of-factness.

With its warm harmonies and wistful catchiness, Summer’s Gone reminds of Love Camp 7. Chameleons contrasts nimbly fingerpicked guitar and resonant electric piano; the album winds up with The Ballad of Little Jane, a wry and strangely pretty ELO-tinged piano ballad. Gardner is at Death by Audio on Mar 3 and then back in New York on Mar 23 at the Mercury; it’s not known if he’s doing these shows solo or with a band. Either way, it should be a lot of fun.

Trippy Noir Pop and Instrumental Tracks from Maston

Some might hear Maston’s new album Shadows and conflate it with 60s stoner pop kitsch like the Beach Boys or Van Dyke Parks. But one-man band Frank Maston actually comes across as more of a cross between Lynch film composer Angelo Badalamenti and vintage keyboard maven Joe McGinty. Maston sings and plays all the instruments here except for Ana Caravelle’s concert harp. Simple, cheery hooks turn apprehensive in a split second, the guitars echoing wet and surfy over a deftly orchestrated series of keyboard patches ranging from vintage 60s organ to the latest lo-fi imitation Casio tones that are all the rage with the Bushwick New Order wannabes. The whole thing is streaming at Maston’s Bandcamp page.

The opening cut, Strange Rituals takes Lesley Gore’s You Don’t Own Me and does it as  Joe Meek might have envisioned it, with reverb guitar and organ and echoey faux Spector kettledrums, rather than high camp. You Were In Love has Hawaiian-flavored slide guitar keening in the distance over an electric harpsichord theme, a more carnivalesque take on Penny Lane moptop pop. Messages, a coolly ominous LA psych-folk tune,  reminds of the Peanut Butter Conspiracy at their trippiest.

Looks, an allusively tropicalia-tinged psych pop tune, recalls Os Mutantes. Young Hearts kicks off with a tiptoeing hook that wouldn’t be out of place in a Frankie Valli song but gets wary and weird in a hurry. The echoey, opaque Judge Alabaster takes awhile to get going before it hits a scampering new wave groove and suddenly it’s over. King Conrad, a trippy guitar-and-harpsichord waltz, would make an elegant interlude on an album by current-day psych stars Jacco Gardner or the Blackfeeet Braves (who both also have excellent new albums out).

The album’s final cuts include Flutter, a twinkling, goodnatured dub-inflected nocturne; Mirror, an unconvincing stab at late 80s Britpop; and Night, a brief ELO-tinged lullaby.

Mothership: Tuneful Texas Metal That Doesn’t Waste Notes

Imagine a metal band that doesn’t waste notes or get self-indulgent. Hard to believe, but that’s Texas power trio Mothership, whose self-titled debut album is out today from Ripple Music. In a style where so many acts either ape the classics or the flavor du jour, it’s refreshing to hear a band who have an instantly recognizable sound, one that draws on 40 rich years of heavy rock but isn’t reverential about it. There’s plenty of post-Sabbath, Orange Goblin-ish chromatic riffage, but without the death-rattle vocals. It’s a compliment to say that there actually a couple of tracks here that could have been radio hits back in the 70s, when a couple of obvious reference points, Blue Oyster Cult and Molly Hatchet were peaking. Guitarist Kelley Juett is the real deal, capable of rapidfire Adrian Smith/Dave Murray runs but more likely to bend notes into the ozone and build a tune like Buck Dharma, or go surrealistically screaming in the same vein as Nektar’s Roye Albrighton. Juett’s bassist brother Kyle and drummer Judge Smith keep it low to the ground with a cast-iron swing, without cluttering the arrangements.

The opening instrumental, Hallucination, has a long intro that nicks Pink Floyd’s Welcome to the Machine before the first  fuzztone riff kicks in, multitracked bluesmetal  riffage with a neat Hendrix allusion kicking off a doublespeed stampede. Cosmic Rain is heavy Texas boogie as BOC might have done it – think Buck’s Boogie, but more creepy and sludgy, the bass kicking off a Maidenesque interlude that finally gets an overamped wah guitar solo.

City Nights motors along with a vintage Molly Hatchet groove, sounding straight out of 1978, with a wickedly haphazard guitar solo running down the scale and obliterating everything in its path. From there they segue into Angel of Death and its Motorhead-meets-BOC assault.

Win or Lose is not the Sham 69 classic but an original, sort of the Kinks’ Superman as Sabbath might have done it and a clinic in good, smart, heavy guitar: slurry chromatic riffage, East Coast boogie, nonchalantly maniacal tremolo-picking and acid blues. Elenin works a fast/slow Maiden dynamic for all it’s worth, through a squalling, psychedelic end-of-the-world scenario.

Eagle Soars blends Texas boogie and Sabbath into a crunchy, menacing roar. The album ends with Lunar Master, a hallucinatory biker epic that nicks the long interlude from Maiden’s Rhyme of the Ancient Mariner, right down to the tasty bass solo and a zillion menacing, echoey layers of guitars as the song rises again. The vinyl record (!!!) and cd each come with a download card and a poster; you’ll have to supply your own hooch. And you don’t have to be a metalhead to like this: much as it’s loud and trippy, it’s also catchy as hell. Let’s ask the devil to send them to New York and book them into St. Vitus.

Good Imaginative Bands on a Cold Night in Gowanus

For once, a seasonably cold Friday night didn’t keep the Brooklyn massive indoors. Down the block from the trash truck depot at the edge of where Gowanus meets Sunset Park, a boisterously responsive crowd gathered at the unexpectedly lavish, relatively new venue SRB to see two of New York’s most original bands.

Karikatura were first on the bill, playing a slinky mix of latin rock and gypsy rock with some reggae and ska thrown in as well. Their frontman played beats on a conga head on several songs and sang nonchalantly smart, socially conscious lyrics over a fiery horn section (alto or tenor sax plus trombone), plus a guitarist playing biting, often flamenco-tinged lines on a nylon-stringed acoustic-electric over the rhythm section’s eclectic grooves. The most infectious of all the songs was Bailarina, which nicked the riff from the famous Algerian freedom fighter anthem Ya Rayyeh and turned it into an unexpectedly angst-fueled reflection by a guy who’s probably more infatuated with a dancing girl than he should be. It’s too loud to talk over the music, all my friends are drunk and I don’t like the idea of other guys hitting on you, the poor dude laments.

Celi, from the band’s most recent ep, Departures, was more hipswinging and seductive. Shortly after that they went into the edgy reggae liberation anthem Una Idea, a richly bass-heavy track from that release, then brought that idea back toward the end of the set with a soaring version of Some Kind Of (Free), a standout tune from their Muzon ep from a couple of years ago. They finally cut loose and jammed on their last number, with a hard-hitting bass break and then a blazing conversation between tenor sax and trombone. Karikatura are a popular touring act  in Europe and south of the border: it was good to see them on their home turf.

House of Waters are one of the most original bands on the planet. Their name is apt: frontman Max ZT, a national champion on the hammered dulcimer, played intricate, incisively rippling melodies throughout their set alongside cajon player Luke Notary and eight-string bassist Moto Fukushima. On the first song, Fukushima played through an octave pedal for a wry, techy tone that contrasted with the rustic feel of the dulcimer. Their music was as danceable as it was psychedelic: on the occasions when the dulcimer passsed off a rhythmic riff to the cajon, it was sometimes impossible to tell who was playing what. On a couple of tunes, Fukushima hit his pedal for a resonant, djeridoo-like drone; he also meandered through a Jerry Garcia-like solo on the high frets and then a wry disco bassline on one of the last songs. On another, Notary switched to ngoni lute as the drummer from Seth Kessel & the Two Cent Band joined them and played a slinky cumbia groove on guacharaca.

Max ZT is a force of nature and a lot of fun to watch, his hands a blur as he fired off supersonically shuffling licks that sounded almost like a mandolin in places. Bits and pieces of gypsy, Appalachian and soukous melodies rang out and pinged through the mix. The next-to-last song – a track from the band’s Revolution album – was intoxicatingly good, shifting suddenly out of  a slow, moody gypsy-flavored vamp when the band took it doublespeed.

Kessel and his Two Cent Band were scheduled to play their goodnaturedly high-energy oldtimey swing and gypsy jazz at some later point in the evening, but by then it was midnight in Gowanus and time to find out if the trains were still running (they were). Catch you next time, guys – they’re at Union Hall in Park Slope on Feb 2 and then at Radegast Hall in Williamsburg on Feb 6.

The 50 Best Albums of 2012

About five years ago, people were saying that the album was a thing of the past. How wrong that turned out to be! This year’s crop of albums was so absurdly good that it felt criminal to whittle it down to a hundred, let alone fifty. And the only way of getting it down to that number was to cut out all the “world music,” including reggae and Afrobeat and most of the gypsy sounds, because there was so much of that and it was all so good.

Bookmark this page and return often. Virtually all of these albums are streaming (click the links) or are available as free downloads: consider this your place to discover some amazing sounds that were too smart for the Bushwick and Wicker Park blogs, and too dangerous for corporate radio and tv.

1.  Ulrich Ziegler – their debut album
Dating back to the 90s,  guitarist Stephen Ulrich has been New York’s most distinguished noir composer. When he wasn’t writing film and tv music, he was leading the ferociously creepy instrumental trio Big Lazy. When that band broke up (the drummer left to join Gogol Bordello), Ulrich eventually teamed up with Itamar Ziegler from Pink Noise, and then released this haunting, reverb-drenched, surf/skronk/jazz/soundscape masterpiece. Stream it

2.  Chicha Libre – Canibalismo
Chicha Libre’s 2008 debut album Sonido Amazonico landed in the top ten and this one is arguably even better, a trippy, wickedly dub-influenced mix of Peruvian surf rock, slinky Andean and latin grooves, and surrealistic psychedelic rock. There is no more fun, or more danceable, band in New York than Chicha Libre. Band info and audio/video

3.  Raya Brass Band – Dancing on Roses, Dancing on Cinders
This fiery Brooklyn crew distinguish themselves from the hundreds of other excellent Balkan brass units by virtue of their long, scorching jams: nobody does that better. Stream it

4.  Botanica – What Do You Believe In
This era’s pre-eminent art-rock band’s most brooding, haunted album, a rich blend of gypsy-tinged melody, raw, roaring guitar, edgy piano and spooky organ. Stream it

5.  The Universal Thump – their full-length debut
The final and concluding installment of the most massive, richly orchestrated album on this list, a lushly symphonic double-cd mix of chamber pop, art-rock, psychedelia and quirky, theatrical indie pop. Stream it

6.  Rachelle Garniez – Sad Dead Alive Happy
The iconic, eclectic accordionist/chanteuse – who has sort of become the Dorothy Parker of underground rock – took a deep dive into soul and gospel sounds, with richly soaring results. Stream it

7.  The Japonize Elephants – Melodie Fantastique
One of the original gypsy bands, this enormous, theatrical circus rock crew took their game to the next level with this one. Stream it

8.  Lianne Smith – Two Sides of a River
An iconic presence in the New York Americana and rock scene since the late 90s, Smith’s debut album was legendary before it was finally released – and it’s as eclectic, psychedelic, haunting and funny as anything else on this list. And her amazing voice is better than ever. Stream it 

9.  Bobtown – Trouble I Wrought
Nobody writes more cleverly creepy acoustic Nashville gothic and bluegrass than Bobtown. With four first-rate songwriters, their sound is as diverse as it is dark. Stream it

10.  Jan Bell – Dream of the Miner’s Child
One of the great voices in Americana music, Bell made this into a concept album that linked British folk with the American country and bluegrass sounds that grew out of it  with a vivid sense of history and a tantalizing mix of classics and originals that sound like Appalachian standards. Stream it/free downloads

11. M Shanghai String Band – Two Thousand Pennies
The mighty eleven-piece Brooklyn acoustic Americana crew’s most lush, haunting, diverse and ultimately best album, ranging from gypsy and chamber pop to brooding Appalachian ballads and the rousing singalong songs they’re best known for. Stream it

12.. Love Camp 7 – Love Camp VII
An expertly wry, tuneful, catchy janglerock concept album looking at recent history through the prism of the Beatles, with a jaundiced eye and expertly labyrinthine polyrhythms. Given up for dead after the tragic loss of brilliant drummer Dave Campbell, the band has recently regrouped and is as playful and fun as ever. Stream it

13. Hannah vs. the Many – All Our Heroes Drank Here
Ferociously literate, white knuckle intense female-fronted punk and powerpop, with some noir cabaret and Jarvis Cocker-style art-rock thrown in for good measure. Stream it

14. The Larch– Days to the West
The follow-up to their 2010 masterpiece Larix Americana finds the Brooklyn retro new wavers sounding more psychedelic and more savagely lyrical than ever. Stream it

15. Lorraine Leckie and Anthony Haden-Guest – Rudely Interrupted
A blackly amusing, gorgeously orchestrated chamber-pop collaboration between the caustic social critic and the Canadian gothic rock siren.  Band info and a/v

16. Black Fortress of Opium – Stratospherical
Lush, roaring, darkly psychedelic Middle Eastern-tinged art-rock from this powerful, female-fronted Boston band. Stream it

17. Matt Keating – Wrong Way Home
The respected Americana rocker’s best single-disc album, a brooding, offhandedly menacing blend of classic soul, country and elegant chamber pop. Stream it

18. Alec K. Redfearn and the Eyesores  – Sister Death
Not to have this album in the #1 spot is pretty absurd: the Rhode Island band’s swirling, psychedelic, gypsy-tinged art-rock masterpiece is the most downright macabre collection on this list. Stream it

19.. The Sometime Boys – Ice & Blood
The second album from cabaret siren Sarah Mucho and art-rocker Kurt Leege’s sharply lyrical acoustic Americana project finds them funkier, more lush and more intense than ever. Stream it

20. Animation – Transparent Heart
As historically important as it is richly arrranged, saxophonist Bob Belden’s collection of cinematic instrumental themes traces the decline of New York over the past couple of decades, centered around 9/11 and the fascism that ensued. Band info and a/v

21. Tift Merritt – Traveling Alone
Marc Ribot’s guitar is amazing beyond belief, and Merrritt’s pensive Americana songs and nuanced vocals are as vivid as always.  Band info and a/v

22. Out of Order – Hey Pussycat
The loudest album on this list is by this assaultive all-female Long Island noiserock/punk trio, raw but richly produced by John Sharples. Stream it

23. Changing Modes – In Flight
With three keyboards and edgy lead guitar, these women and guys play biting, lyrical art-rock and new wave-influenced sounds. Stream it

24. Chris Erikson & the Wayward Puritans – Lost Track of the Time
Erikson has been one of the great guitarists in Americana for years, in other peoples’ bands. This is his long-overdue debut as a leader, a careening, gorgeously twangy mix of Americana, paisley underground psychedelia and riff-rock. Stream it

25. Marissa Nadler – The Sister
The Nashville gothic/noir cabaret chanteuse/songwriter’s most haunting and atmospheric album since her debut, a darkly nebulous, allusive gem. Stream it/free downloads

26. Spanking Charlene – Where Are the Freaks
Female-fronted Americana punk band with  powerful, intense lead vocals, hooks that run the gamut from the Stooges to X and a potently snide, sarcastic, spot-on worldview. Stream it

27. Frankenpine – In That Black Sky
Creepy original bluegrass, Appalachian ballads and elegantly dark acoustic sounds from this diverse Brooklyn band. Stream it/free dowloads

28. Choban Elektrik – their debut album
A side project by members of Zappa cover band Project/Object, they take classic Balkan and gypsy themes and make trippy psychedelic rock out of them. Stream it

29. Slavic Soul Party – New York Underground Tapes
The wildly popular Brooklyn Balkan brass band at the top of their funky, surprisingly eclectic, intensely danceable game. Stream it

30. Saint Maybe – Things As They Are
A throwback to the paisley underground bands of the 80s like True West and the Dream Syndicate, this project by a Patti Smith guitarist and Bob Dylan’s drummer mixes surreal, apocalyptic imagery and raw, surreal, psychedelic Americana rock. Stream it 

31. Mike Rimbaud – Can’t Judge a Song By Its Cover
The New York underground rocker – who also put out an excellent album of originals last year, and constantly releases video singles – puts his indelibly New York spin on politically charged classics by Phil Ochs, Dylan, the Stones and others. Stream it

32. When the Broken Bow – We, the Dangerous Weapons
A surreal, fearlessly political, apocalyptic concept album by this Oregon band  that runs the gamut from soul-pop to careening art-rock to goth and gypsy sounds. Stream it

33. Tim Foljahn – Songs for an Age of Extinction
Grimly lyrical, pensively psychedelic noir chamber pop and Americana-influenced songwriting. Stream it

34. Demolition String Band – Gracious Days
The well-loved New York Americana/bluegrass/rock twanglers’ best electric album, an intoxicating blend of guitars, mandolins, banjo and Elena Skye’s velvet vocals. Stream it

35. The Brixton Riot – Palace Amusements
Sort of the missing link between the Jam and Guided by Voices, this New Jersey band blast their way through a series of hard-hitting, swirling, lyrically biting three-minute songs. Stream it

36. L’il Mo & the  Monicats – Whole Lotta Lovin
Americana chanteuse Monica Passin’s most intimate and eclectic album to date, with soaring harmonies from fellow Americana siren Drina Seay. Song samples

37. Leigh Marble – Where the Knives Meet Between the Rows
Brooding, bitterly lyrical songwriting with a mix of hypnotically psychedelic and Americana-flavored tunes from the Portland, Oregon bandleader. Stream it

38. Eilen Jewell – Queen of the Minor Key
Truth in advertising – Jewel excels at noir Americana, ghoulabilly, garage rock and oldschool psychedelic sounds. Band info and a/v

39. Mucca Pazza – Safety Fifth
A characteristically high-voltage mix of short but sonically titanic gypsy punk and gypsy rock songs from the brass-heavy Chicago dance orchestra. Stream it

40. Chicago Stone Lightning Band – their debut album
With a raw, guitar-fueled edge, their twin-Gibson assault covers classic 60s style Chicago blues, riff-driven stoner rock, original soul and funk. Stream it

41. Emily Jane White – Ode to Sentience
Intense, broodingly lyrical, intricately orchestrated Nashville gothic and art-rock sounds. Band info and a/v 

42. My Education – A Drink for All My Friends
The Austin postrock/instrumental band have never sounded more lush or guitarishly intense on this mix of desert rock and cinematic themes. Stream it

43. Tom Shaner – Ghost Songs, Waltzes and Rock n Roll
That such a great album would be this low on the list attests to how amazing this past year was for music. The former Industrial Tepee frontman has never written more richly or lyrically than he does on this southwestern gothic gem. Band info and video

44. Jon DeRosa – A Wolf in Preacher’s Clothes
The Brooklyn crooner comes across as sort of a cross between Jarvis Cocker and Leonard Cohen, with a mix of lush chamber pop, Americana and 80s-influenced gothic art-rock. Band info and a/v

45. The Sweetback Sisters – Lookin’ for a Fight
This amazing two-frontwoman honkytonk band not in the top ten? How can that be possible? Take a look at the rest of the list. Stream it

46. Band of Outsiders – Sound Beach Quartet
The 80s psychedelic punk legends are still going strong, with a richly jangly, snaky new ep that evokes Television as well as the Jesus & Mary Chain, both groups whose careers they’ve now eclipsed. Stream it 

47. Mighty High – Legalize Tre Bags
The funniest album of the year blends roaring Motorhead-style biker rock with woozy stoner riffage and some of the best weed jokes ever put on vinyl. Stream it

48. The Weal and Woe – The One to Blame
Gorgeously harmony-driven oldschool honkytonk and 1950s style proto-rockabilly sounds from this wonderfully retro Brooklyn band. Stream it

49. Guided by Voices – The Bears for Lunch
Agelessly energetic, prolific indie surrealist Robert Pollard hasn’t lost a thing: this is the third and best release in the band’s incredibly productive 2012, not including Pollard’s own solo releases. Band info and a/v

50. Ian Hunter – When I’m President
Last but hardly least on this list, another ageless rocker from an even earlier era put out an album that could be the great lost Stones classic from 30 years ago. Band info/free downloads 

A Tale of Two Imaginative Sephardic Bands

Deleon and Jaffa Road are two good examples of the current crop of gypsy-flavored rock bands. Both sometimes get pigeonholed as Sephardic bands, but much as each is influenced by global Jewish sounds, each group’s sound is unique and incorporates a vast web of genres. Deleon’s Tremor Fantasma is the more consistently enjoyable of the two’s most recent albums; it’s streaming in its entirety here.

The opening cut is a bhangra groove with hypnotic vocal harmonies and keening steel guitar; later on, another track reminds of Indian-influenced British folk-rock from the 70s. One particularly killer cut here is the brooding Bie Sarika, with a luscious web of flanged banjos mingling with roaring slide guitar as it winds out. La Muerte Chiquita, a reggae tune with steel pans, has a similarly flamenco-inflected feel, followed by Los Bibilicos, another reggae cut that builds from spaghetti western ambience on the wings of a soaring brass arrangement.

Buena Semana kicks off by blending jangly soukous guitar, those steel pans again and hints of American country music and rises to a soaring, anthemic art-rock interlude. Lamma Bada works a haunting, slowly syncopated spaghetti western/Arabic psychedelic rock groove, while Ansi Dize la Novia takes a west African kora riff and makes bouncy Middle Eastern stoner rock out of it. With its echoey vibraphone and searing guitar leads, Para Que Quiero takes a French ye-ye pop theme and builds it into psychedelic reggae-rock..

Barrinam coyly finds the missing link between Mexican banda music and bluegrass. The album ends with A la Nana, an absolutely creepy, stately minor key banjo waltz and then a brave attempt to turn a Turkish folk tune into chicha.

Jaffa Road’s new Where the Light Gets In is just as diverse and should be just as good but isn’t. How come? The band are all excellent musicians, they draw eclectically and imaginatively from styles around the globe, they write interesting, counterintuive songs and they sound like they’d be a lot of fun to see live. What could possibly be wrong with this picture? Schlocky production. The stench of stale cheese pervades this album. Case in point: a pensive Aaron Lightstone oud solo can’t just be left alone as it it is, it has to have a useless synthesizer track grafted to it. Alto saxophonist Sundar Viswanathan, who adds an welcome unpredictable edge throughout the album, leads the band into the one interlude that they could take into genuine jazz territory…and suddenly a computerized drum track stomps the life out of it.

Cheesy canned beats, dated trip-hop cliches and halfhearted rap and corporate-rock tropes pop up like ads in your favorite video: they’re annoying to the point where you reach for the mute, or simply click off. Which is too bad, because at the top of their game this band is every bit as good as Deleon. Groups like this you root for, you want them to succeed, especially when they can come up with a track like the haunting rai-rock of The Mist of Your Eyes, or the lusciously swirling psychedelic Bollywood vamp Hamidbar Medaber. It’s frustrating when they don’t, especially since that may not be their fault – a manager or producer may be to blame. Memo to musicians: corporate pop is dead and has been for decades. Nobody over the age of eight wants to hear it, or anything associated with it. Nobody listens to corporate radio either, except for sports or the weather. We’re in a new century now. Get with the program.

Haunting, Original, Rootsy Ethiopian Sounds from Dub Colossus

Dub Colossus’ 2008 debut In a Town Called Addis was one of that year’s most original and enjoyable albums, a trippy blend of roots reggae and bracing 70s Ethiopian sounds. This blog didn’t yet exist at that point…and slept on the band’s follow-up, Addis Through the Looking Glass, when that one came out at the end of last year. So it’s good to see that it’s been reissued. Where its predecessor was more heavily produced, with a vintage dub feel, this one juxtaposes rootsy reggae grooves with edgy, modal Ethiopiques vamps, often fleshed out with a rich, jazzy complexity by a polyglot cast of Ethiopian and British musicians. As with a lot of this stuff, the shadow of pioneering Ethiopian jazz composer Mulatu Astatke towers over this music. While this might be the last project you might expect to be spearheaded by Transglobal Underground founder Nick Page, he absolutely excels with it, not only as a reggae bassist but also as jazz guitarist and impressively dubwise producer. In case you’re wondering, this is about as far from dubstep as Lee “Scratch” Perry is.

The title cut sets the stage as it grows out of a pensive Samuel Yirga piano line to a swaying, intertwined Nerses Nalbandian style brass arrangement featuring the Horns of Negus. Much of the best Ethiopian music utilizes otherwordly, overtone-packed minor-key modes and this is a good example. The second track, Dub Will Tear Us Apart, is no relation to Joy Division – although Ian Curtis probably would have liked it, being a big reggae fan. This one blends noir tremolo guitars, Farfisa organ, melismatic vocals and swirly keys into a vortex of dub, then leaves it there.

Tringo Dub starts out with a brisk sway as the singer leads a call-and-response over a thinly disguised reggae beat that eventually hits a high with a trippy, staccato Joanna Popowicz piano solo. Yirga’s waterfalling, jazz-tinged piano lights up a slow, bolero-esque ballad sung plaintively by Tsedenia Gebremarkos Woldesilassie. The track after that blends Farfisa, loud rock guitar and a jaunty brass arrangement over a hypnotically circular triplet rhythm. They follow that with a darkly insistent funk tune and then a slow, bluestery noir groove that might be the album’s strongest track. The album winds up with a rustic song for krar harp spiced with light electronic dub flourishes, a haunting, slow reggae jam and then a lush, lively Ethiopian swing jazz piece.

There are also two covers here. The first is a faithful version of the Abyssinians’ Satta Massagana, where the irony of hearing an Ethiopian woman trade verses with crooner Mykaell S. Riley,  in a song written by Jamaicans who’d never left the island, manages not to get in the way. The other is an amusing Ethio dub version of Althea & Donna’s Uptown Top Ranking which is a lot rootsier than the original. As with this crew’s first album, there’s a spontaneity and intensity here that’s often missing from more reverential or derivative cross-cultural collaborations. Here’s hoping they keep this alive and make another album somewhere down the line.

Cosmopolitan Surrealism from Rabih Abou-Khalil

Lebanese-French oudist and composer Rabih Abou-Khalil’s latest album Hungry People is jaunty, funny, unpredictably trippy and quintessentially cosmopolitan. It’s nebulously Middle Eastern, but it owes as much to American jazz and rock (especially Frank Zappa) as it does any traditional levantine style. The lead instrument here, for the most part, is not the oud but Sardinian singer Gavino Murgia’s terse, resonant soprano sax. Accordionist Luciano Biondini adds lickety-split Mediterranean flair alongside tuba virtuoso Michel Godard, who somehow gets his big horn to emulate an entire brass section’s worth of sounds. It’s ironic yet not particularly surprising that the most potentially comedic instrument on such a humor-driven album would be given a more serioso role than the rest of the band. Eclectic drummer Jarrod Cagwin propels this beast with beats that run the gamut from mighty to delicate.

For the most part, these songs don’t frequently employ the haunting, modal Middle Eastern grooves that a lot of fans of this music  gravitate toward. To set the stage, the blithe opening track, Shrilling Chicken adds some bouncy Moroccan flavor to a familiar American blues progression. While an oud, an accordion and growly electric bass all vamping the blues over a North African beat might not be what you might expect, that’s pretty much the point here. The second cut, When the Dog Bites has Zappa-esque surrealism, a latin-tinged groove, a funky tuba bassline and droll throat-singing from Murgia.

Unsurprisingly, the best songs here – and the ones that will appeal the most to fans of more traditional, uneasily slinky levantine sounds – are the serious ones. A Better Tomorrow is one of the rare places where the oud gets centerstage – and finally a long, suspenseful solo - lit up by Cagwin’s lush cymbal work. And Dreams of a Dying City has the feel of a cautionary tale, terse, elegaic and insistently, ominously crescendoing.

The rest of the album shifts from satirically bustling cinematics (Bankers’ Banquet and the offhandedly chilling Hats and Cravats) to shuffling Irish reel allusions (Fish & Chips & Mushy Peas), to madcap 50s Egyptian film music (When Frankie Shot Lara), to unexpectedly pensive and lyrical (If You Should Leave Me), to the busy Shaving Is Boring, Waxing Is Painful, the closest thing to straight-up jazz here with its tricky metrics. Those who like this album also ought to check out Abou-Khalil’s orchestral works, which his inimitable brand of surrealism to new levels with some lavish arrangements. This one’s out now from Harmonia Mundi.